


Whatever You Like

by Ash_Cassidy97



Category: James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Q, Dragons, M/M, Subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:49:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6576397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Cassidy97/pseuds/Ash_Cassidy97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hands in the sand. Aces on the top of the deck. Q didn’t grow up in London. Q grew up as an average card dealer in America, Los Angeles. He fucking hated the sand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever You Like

 

Hands in the sand. Aces on the top of the deck. Q didn’t grow up in London. Q grew up as an average card dealer in America, Los Angeles. He fucking hated the sand.

 

“Pick a card, any card,” the man muttered under his breath. He sat on a stool, dealing the deck. He was slumped forward but his eyes peaked out from under his fringe (he couldn’t help it, he had to know). His dress shirt shelves were rolled back. He was seventeen and already knew too much.

 

He had shit coffee and a cigarette smelling boxy laptop waiting for him back home. It was preferable to a woman any day.

 

An elderly woman walked up and slid a card from the top of the deck. Jeff Royd was the dealer, the seventeen year old who wore the same white shirt that he had worn for the past four days (washer was broke; rent was late). He caught her eye from the way she sat down without groaning about her old bones. She wear a loose sweater that was shrugged over her shoulders as though she was anything but a dragon. 

 

Jeff sat up straighter.

 

It was the same crowd time after time. It was either those old elderly people trying to get their money back or young folks trying to lose it. This woman didn’t give a shit about the money, Jeff could tell, but she cared about the game.

 

He shuffled the cards when the game ended (but it really didn’t). The dragon stayed for the next one. She had a crisp British accent, government, definitely, probably stateside for work. She picked herself up like she was twenty years younger and left for another table.

 

He left at the end of his shift, walking out back and lighting up a smoke. He scuffed his shoes against the stone steps of the library. It was two blocks down from the casino that he dealt at and one block from his house. It had bars on the windows.

 

Jeff breaked in the cigarette smoke slowly. Exhale. He snapped his lighter closed.

 

“Nasty habit,” the dragon said from the corner.

 

“Yeah? What about it?” He had a weird accent, like a half forgotten Monty Python polished deeper tone.

 

“You hacked MI6 yesterday, Mr. Royd.”

 

“Can’t have,” Jeff said, bored. “I was busy paying rent. If I could hack the Brits, I would be able to make money for rent.”

 

He was tense though. Dragons don’t let go of their hoard. And he . . .well, nobody wouldn’t want to trap him. He didn’t lie.

 

“You’re seventeen, and you work at a casino.”

 

“I work at a saloon on Friday nights, incase you really need another detail for my tragic backstory. I assume that you work for the British government.”

 

The dragon merely smiled. “I run MI6. I wanted to meet the man who can hack Britain’s greatest defense.”

 

“That is-adorable,” Jeff remarked, taking another puff of future lung cancer. “I don’t hack and-”

 

“Do your parents know-that you work at a saloon?” Jeff chuckled drily. It was such an old fashioned term for a strip club.

 

“They don’t care, which you would know if you bothered to do your research. Get to your point. I want to go home and remove your bugs.”

 

“I want to offer you a job.”

 

“Based on what? The delusion that I can hack?”

 

“You said “can’t” and “don’t hack”, but you never said you didn’t break into my system.” So the dragon had a brain after all.

 

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jeff decided that he might as well not completely admit his criminal activities, but surrender nevertheless.

 

“Run a computer helpline. Simple, easy.” She met his eyes squarely. “An idiot could manage it and you would have to move to England of course. Both your parents would believe that you were killed. They’d bury an empty casquette.”

 

“And if I don’t?”

 

“Well, you hacked the British government.”

 

“I accept your ‘offer.’”

 

“Good,” the dragon said stoutly. “Come and let’s get your things.”

 

“Now?” Jeff asked shakily.

 

“Now. Call me M.”

 

“Awesome,” Jeff muttered sarcastically. “Good to know that I’ve fallen in with the Men in Black. Do I become K?”

 

M gave him her best dry look. “You will be known simply as Minion I suspect, for the time being. Honestly, you’ll just be answering a phone.”

 

“Right,” Jeff said sarcastically, leading the way to his house. He unlocked the door carefully, and silently walked inside. He packed a messenger bag quickly and a small suitcase. Most of his personal things were torn computer guts and  _ The Chronicles of Narnia  _ ( _ Lord of the Rings _ was so cliche) and some clothes. He shucked on his shoes and ragged hoddie.

 

“Ready?” M asked. Jeff nodded.

 

So M stuck her new hacker on a plane to England and hoped that he wouldn’t be scared off.

 

Jeff dumped his shit on his new bed. It was a relatively nice sunny and open apartment. A curtain could be pulled across to separate the bedroom space from the living space. Old hardwood floors and large windows. It was one main room with a small kitchen and half bathroom. Jeff’s only problem was the large windows.

 

“You sure that this is safe?” he asked M.

 

“Yes,” she replied curtly. “Unknown location, unless you’re HR and even then . . .you’ll be safe here. I’ll send a car round in the morning, should get here” She moved to leave but hesitated. “And wear something that doesn’t make you look like you’re from Los Vegas.”

 

“I have some cardigans.” She raised her eyebrows but left.

* * *

 

“You have reached a helpline. Please state your emergency and location.”

 

It took Jeff two years to work up the ladder. Two bloody years of “have you tried turning it on and off again?” before he replaced the old runner of the helpline deck.

 

“Helpline. Please state your emergency,” he repeated calmly, switching buttons on. 

 

He was sitting in the basement of MI6, next to twenty other helpers. Sally was out sick so he was pulling a double shift of managing the others and doing her job. Oh, and he might’ve hacked into the Chilean government but it was for work.

 

“There- _ Bang _ \- is a  _ -bang- _ problem _ -bang- _ with your gun.”

 

“Ah,” Jeff said cheerfully. “What seems to be the trouble?”

 

“It doesn’t fucking explode.”

 

“Well, it’s not supposed to.” Jeff sighed heavily. Honestly, just because Q branch can make something explode, doesn’t mean they did (they totally did but it had been 3am in the morning and they’d had  _ coffee  _ all right).

 

“Make it,” the man growled on the other line.

 

The tech genius sighed heavily, carefully tracing the agent’s signal and hacking into the surrounding security cameras. “See you. Black panel on the bottom. Flip it up and take out the batteries.”

 

“You put batteries in a gun?”

 

“Well? How else do you expect it to glow in the dark?”

 

“It glows in the dark?” Jeff rolled his eyes. Honestly. The agent flipped the cover off and threw the gun. “Run?”

 

“Well, I don’t think M wants to replace you yet. What’s your code name again?”

 

“006.”

 

“Run.” 006 ran, sliding across the roof and over a ditch. The sky caught on fire behind him.

 

“Who-fucking-makes-an-explosive gun?”

 

“This person,” Jeff squaked cheerfully. He threw his hands up in the air. 006 chortled on the line. “Well, saved your life at least once.”

 

“Signing off for the moment, thanks, I didn’t catch your name?”

 

“Computer 3, at the help desk.”

 

“Ah, following regulation like a good boy, were you?” The line clicked shut.

* * *

 

And that was how it went for six months. Jeff’s superviser slowly moved him up the ladder, allowing him to supervise more of the 00 agents.

 

“Holy shit-why are you throwing you throwing the banana with a condom on it at the man?”

 

“Safer sex?”

 

“YOU’RE NOT HAVING SEX, 007!”

 

“Multi-tasking.”

 

The 00s started to request computer 3. R promoted him to the main tech lab. He made friends with Moneypenny, one of the few agents to have ever killed Bond. And then MI6 blew up and Jeff was automatically promoted to Q status because he was the only one remaining.

 

He stood in this broken shell of a place, that was operating at its best because that is what MI6 is. The ones where thrive when everything goes to hell.

 

He stood in the cold center of MI6, surveying his realm. New bunker. Old, broken tech. He could hardly be blamed for ignoring 007 and trolling him in the art gallery. Nine days with only five hours of sleep when he was barely nineteen and then Bond just had to make a comment about his spots. Q was so tempted to shoot him in the foot. Bond just smirked.

 

“Of course it will, put your back into it.” He had broken MI6. He wore jumpers instead of white shirts and he’d broken the British government. He still had a deck of worn cards in the bottom of his right desk drawer.

 

“Why don’t you come down here and put your back into it. . . No, it’s stuck. Oh good, there’s a train coming.”

 

“Hmm, that’s vexing.” 

 

He barely breathed out when his agent got through. There was nothing for Q to do. He’d already failed his first job. Hell, he was only the safeguard for the safeguard. He wasn’t surprised that he was responsible for a train crash in the middle of London.

 

He counted faces the same way that he had counted cards growing up. His skills were developed separately but operated codependently. He tracked down Silva easily in the same way that he had worked poker tables for years. And then he was out of the game. He put his minions (they didn’t quite respect him yet) to work and prayed that M and Bond would make it back. One of them didn’t.

 

He didn’t go to the funeral. Somebody was dead and there was more work to do. Moneypenny glared at him for three days straight because he wouldn’t leave his lab. Too bad, there may or may not have been a blue box that was a horrible distraction from time.

 

“Q?” Bond asked, leaning over Q’s table.

 

“Yes?” 

 

Bond sighed. The techie rolled his eyes. He rolled out from under a minivan (not all toys can be sexy).

 

“What?” Q asked sharply.

 

“Have you eaten to-yesterday?”

 

“No. I need to work.” Q moved to rolled back under but Bond caught him. Q controlled his flinch.

 

“Well, I’m pulling the cord. You can work after you eat something and sleep for a few hours.”

 

“I’m-”

 

“You drown, the whole place will too. M’s”-he paused, biting his words off- “M’s new and Tanner doesn’t know how to negotiate shit yet. The 00s, Moneypenny and  _ you _ are the only people holding this sinking ship together.”

 

“I fucked up, Bond.”

 

“Yes, you did,” the spy said curtly to the other spy. “Now, killing yourself is not going to fix it. So get up.”

 

Q stood up slowly. They both felt so ancient in that moment. Jeff wanted to go and punch himself in the face for mocking Bond for feeling old. Q wanted to go sleep in for at least six hours and then work for another three days and then pass out. Was that too much to ask?

 

“You got him?” Moneypenny called down from the deck above. She had avoided him after he’d thrown a wrench at her, saying that there was no point in arguing with him when he was like that. She’d called reinforcements.

 

“Yeah. Come alone Q. I was told to give you tea and sugar.”

 

“Cristo,” Q mumbled under his breath because 007 was being nice. Next he’d start returning all his equipment without a scratch, which was clearly written in the MI6 Operating Procedure as the eighth sign of the apocalypse.

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing.” Moneypenny glared at her Quartermaster.

 

Bond shepherded the man into the tube and out into the sunlight through a passage. Q mumbled under his breath but let Bond take him into a cafe. He let the man order him tea and some pasta. Bond slammed the plate in front of the man.

 

“Eat,” the spy muttered. Jeff ate. His hands weren’t shaky but Bond could tell that he was nervous. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

Jeff snorted lightly. “God no. You?”

 

“Fuck no.” Bond smiled, wrapping his hands around his tea. “Vexing?”

 

“Sorry. I thought it would be vexing at least.”

 

“At least?”

 

“Thanks for-this.”

 

“You drown, we all drown, Quartermaster.”

 

“Hmm. Well don’t die yourself, Bond. I would hate to have to deal with the paperwork.” Then a hellish glee came into Q’s eyes. “ _ Delegation _ ,” he sounded out. “I have minions.”

 

“I feel a deep sympathy for your underlings,” Bond replied.

 

“Bond, I . . .have  . . . _ minions _ . Oh, my days of having to file the 00/X form are over!”

 

“The  _ what _ ?”

 

“Oh, it’s this form that I had to file whenever an 00 agent slept with somebody and now they’re trying to kill them.”

 

“Huh. That would be ‘vexing’ to file. How many do we have on file right now?”

 

“Oh, about 100.”

 

“Well, that’s not-” Bond paid for the meal.

 

“This year.” Q smiled evilly. “I hear that MIF has a much harder time of it than we do so that’s something.”

 

“Is there a committee for my sex life?” Bond asked in a mock excited tone.

 

“Bond, there’s a documentary. Moneypenny brings popcorn.” Q bumped Bond’s shoulder. They walked in silence to Q’s apartment. “I can take it from here. I apologize for my unprofessional behavior,” he finished woodenly.

 

Bond waved it off. “See you in the morning, Q.”

 

“Bond.” Q turned and hurried up the steps of the apartment. He locked the door behind him.

 

Jeff had five poker chips in his bottom right draw and he had caught the attention of a spy. And he had a gun on his nightstand. There were small diamond scales across his shoulders like stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I sorta stole the version that is Q’s name from the original series. His name Geoffrey Boothroyd. Test Your Skills on Worldbuilding because my brain likes to drop gauntlets on me. Jeff is American because goddamn it, I felt like it. Still somewhat Brit picked. Sorry. 
> 
> I tried to make it dark and it just became ridiculous. And then halfway through writing it, I got tired of people just being old souls. The only reason why you’re an old soul is either you’re a hipster and faking that shit or you’ve actually seen shit.
> 
> It is complete for the moment because I'm halfway through the next chapter and I don't know a good way to continue it, but thelightwithin thought it sounded good. She is much too nice.
> 
>  
> 
> How many pages did it take until I clarified things? nine.


End file.
